Find the logic in this statement

I am perplexed. "Break down the barriers" is the battle cry over at NOW, and yet I cannot see what walls they mean. What barriers??

More than 6,000 women scientists, engineers, educators and other professionals urged Congress on Wednesday to remove barriers to women and girls who want to enter the fields of math, engineering, information technology, physics and other "hard sciences." The call came in a letter asking for an investigation and corrective legislation and received at a May 11 public event by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and George Allen, R-Va., as former chairs of the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space. Sen. Allen has noted that the U.S. is lagging far behind other countries in graduating engineers, placing this country at a competitive disadvantage.

Is there a plot we don't know about?

Are there admission criteria which hobble women?

If we don't have enough engineers for the available work, does that mean just the women are missing? Wouldn't men fill the gap for the sake of supply and demand?

Could women be avoiding the "hard sciences" for reasons other than imaginary barriers?

Is it possible that secondary schools prepare too few students in general for hard sciences, or are just the girls being held back in some subversive way?

Is it possible that some girls on their own are thinking of other life commitments that might not mesh with high-powered careers like these?

Didn't I just read that girls are performing better in all sorts of academic areas than boys?

What planet are these people on? And what exactly is "corrective legislation?" Call me paranoid, but why do quotas jump immediately into my mind?

Comments

[Nathan N.]

This is interesting to me. When I was in junior high and high school, the majority of people who excelled in the more advanced math classes like calculus were overwhelmingly girls. I went to Catholic schools. I'm not seeing what the barriers to these careers are, either; at my school, the very intelligent girls were always encouraged in their mathematical skills and were very often rewarded for them. (And so were the few boys who excelled in this area).

If there are barriers, they must be at the college level -- I certainly didn't see them at the junior high and high school levels.

[mary]

I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids.

Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.

[me]

Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.

[Margi]

Like Nathan I went to Catholic school - we were all girls and we all expected to excel to the glory of God. No baby a year til you drop for us. I have a BSc and MSc in medical sciences but I chose to become a nurse. I wanted to.

[Jodi]

I majored in Computer Science in college. I felt what it was like to be one of a handful of women (maybe 3 or 4) in a class of 70 or more. I had (male) friends that used my grades to tease each other. ("Greg, a girl can program better than you!", etc)

I think it really is a lot more of a mental barrier. You feel out of place when you are one of the only women. I was afraid to speak up in class because I did not want to be "that dumb girl".

It only got better when a group of us women started meeting regularly to talk. When we affirmed one another in our fears, we gained confidence. I felt more at home in my chosen major. I was more confident in my abilities.

I understand that some careers/educational degrees may be more appealing to women than others, but that does not mean that it should be difficult for women to enter those fields.

[mandamum]

There is an interesting book examining where the "leak in the pipeline" is, and I think they found a few leaks--different barriers at different levels. Especially where connecting to mentors helped at the college/graduate level. But I don't really see how one could "legislate" a solution to these. And are you aware of the study that found that, given a math quiz and seated in group of three, the girls performed much worse if even one of the three was a boy? Hmm.... But I think we have come a long way, and will continue to overcome some of these issues as time passes.

I am currently a math grad student, and my impression is that the boundaries there are related to the acceptability of part-time positions in academia. I would love to raise my children and keep one foot in the math-education world, and then get back into it fulltime in 20 years, but I think I'll have to carve my own way to that, if I can. But this isn't something that should be legislated...except perhaps to insist on equal pay for equal work, even if it's not done for the same number of hours a week.

And the other big way to legislate equality, in anything work-wise, is to insist on good, cheap, daycare. That's what I see when I see this question--that's what my fellow students mostly want. A few of us want a real way to split studies and family without people writing us off as "not serious", but the rest seem more taken up with finding good other-care for their children.